This article is intended to analyse a group of manufacturing SMEs in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in order to explain the characteristics which bring about their high level of growth. The context was therefore adapted to a research model sponsored by OECD, which gives pride of place to qualitative methods, well-founded theory and the use of software to analyse information given by interviewees. Categories of perception of innovation were identified (that is, control of information, essential competences and the dynamics of the owner-director structure), which contain properties and dimensions that explain the growth of the SMEs studied, and further, are compatible with the theory of the growth of a business and recent theory based on recent on resources and capacities of a business